


Oh Bother

by truth_renowned



Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: F/M, Married Life, Pregnancy, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-30
Updated: 2018-08-30
Packaged: 2019-07-04 18:18:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15846762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/truth_renowned/pseuds/truth_renowned
Summary: Daniel does some work on the house while Peggy is away.





	Oh Bother

**Author's Note:**

> A nod to Hayley Atwell’s role as Evelyn Robin in the movie Christopher Robin.

Peggy exhaled in relief as she walked across her home’s threshold. Shutting the door behind her, she dropped her suitcase. Traveling normally was a necessary evil but it had become a laborious and sometimes painful chore with her being six months pregnant (give or take a month, according to the doctor). She felt a sharp twinge in her back, reminding her just how uncomfortable airline seats were.

After her back calmed down, she took in a deep breath, filling her lungs with the scents of home: coffee brewing, burned kindling in the fireplace, the faint spice of Daniel’s cologne. But something was different. A new smell. Not unpleasant but not familiar. Somewhat chemical?

She heard the familiar thunk of Daniel’s crutch coming down the hallway. He stopped just inside the living room. Her eyebrow quirked at his appearance: shirt wrinkled, hair disheveled, face dotted with light freckles and a streak of… she wasn’t sure what.

“What have you been up to?” she asked, amused.

“Nothing,” he replied, his timid expression giving away his guilt.

They walked toward each other, meeting halfway in the living room. “Well, you have a smudge of nothing on your face.”

Her fingers brushed over his cheek and came away with an oily, slightly sticky substance, pale yellow in color. She sniffed it; that was what she’d been smelling.

“Is this paint?” she asked.

“I was hoping I’d be done before you got home.”

“I do apologize for being early,” she replied wryly. “I can leave and come back in a few hours.”

He reached for her, his arm snaking around her back. “Stay right where you are.”

She smiled and welcomed his warm, slow kiss. 

“That’s the kind of homecoming I wanted,” she said. “Now, I’ll ask again. What have you been up to?”

His face giving away nothing, he took her hand and led her down the hallway to their second bedroom, which served as a home office and storage room.

She gasped as she saw that the room had been stripped of all furniture and boxes. Her mind briefly flitted around the question of where everything had gone, but it gave up as she looked around. The smell of paint was much stronger, and she saw why: The wainscoting was no longer its wood color but now a light butter yellow. But it was what lay above the wainscoting that caught and held her gaze.

“Just a few more spots to paint,” Daniel offered. “Rose told me you’ve been talking about reading Winnie the Pooh to the baby, and she searched to see if there was wallpaper. Turns out there is but it’s sold out in the States, so I asked Jarvis order it through some of Stark’s connections. Rose put up the wallpaper. She’s a pro, had it up in no time. My job was painting.”

She met his gaze and could see the questioning in his eyes, but she couldn’t speak.

“I know we didn’t talk about how to decorate the nursery,” he continued, “but Rose assured me it was the way to go. Blame her if you don’t like it.”

It took her a few seconds to find her voice. She met Daniel’s gaze and smiled warmly before saying, “Then I will give her the credit since I love it. Had I known this wallpaper existed, I would have picked it out myself.” She looked back at the wall and traced one of the Eeyore drawings with her finger. “When I was at Bletchley Park, I remember watching my friend Linda reading the book to her baby. The characters are very precious.”

“Wait here,” he said as he walked out of the room.

Her smile never faded as she studied each scene in the wallpaper: Pooh and Piglet walking, Tigger chasing a butterfly, Piglet running with a balloon, Eeyore no doubt being his gloomy self…. All of it was wonderful. The wallpaper, the paint. And especially her husband.

Peggy turned as she heard him come into the room, two books in his hand. He offered them to her, and she gasped as she saw what they were.

“There’s two?” she said, taking both books from him. “I knew about _Winnie the Pooh_ but not _The House at Pooh Corner_.”

He smiled. “I read both of them. Pretty cute, if you like talking stuffed animals.”

She scoffed lightheartedly as she examined the cover of _The House at Pooh Corner_ , which was white with a blue spine and blue embossed outlines of Christopher Robin in the upper left corner and Pooh in the lower right.

“I have to admit,” he said, “by the second book, Eeyore was growing on me.”

She glanced up from the book, grinning. “My favorite is Pooh. He’s not terribly smart but he has a good heart and always protects the ones he loves.”

“Why do I feel like you just described me?”

“Perhaps a bit,” she said with a laugh. “You are one of the smartest men I know, so that part is not you. But you do have a good heart and you always protect those you love.” Her hand smoothed over her growing belly. “Even those of us who have yet to arrive.”

“Especially those,” he said as he placed his hand over hers. “How is she doing?”

“It’s he, and he slept through the flight. Thank goodness.” She winced as another spasm thrummed in her lower back. “My back, however, has decided to wake up in an awful way.”

She’d been suffering backaches the past few months, and sitting on an airplane for sixteen hours didn’t help. 

“How about a back rub?” he offered.

She sighed through her smile. “That sounds divine.”

“Let me get cleaned up and you go get undressed.”

He left but she stayed, taking in the room again. No, not just a room. A nursery. They had a nursery now. They were about to be a family. The contentment that spread through her body was like nothing she’d ever felt.

After giving one last brush of her finger over the wallpaper, she headed to their bedroom, unbuttoning her dress as she went. She abhorred maternity clothes and had mentioned it to Ana. Less than two weeks later, she had an entire wardrobe thanks to Ana’s talented hands. The dresses were made so they could be let out an inch at a time if necessary. Howard was a genius, but he certainly wasn’t the only one under his roof.

Peggy dropped the dress to the floor, then made short order of the brassiere. She laid on the bed near the edge, her back facing out.

“I’m paint-free,” Daniel said as he entered the bedroom. “At least I think I am.”

“Good enough.”

She heard the scrape of a chair, which she knew he was moving to the edge of the bed. A few second later, she moaned as his thumb rubbed the base of her spine, slowly moving its way up. The fingers of his other hand worked on her middle back, his knuckles lightly digging in where she imagined the baby was situated.

“Thank you, darling,” she breathed out. 

“Anytime.”

She moaned again when he found a particularly nasty knot in her lower back. “I can tolerate domestic flights, but these international ones are brutal.”

“Then don’t do them.”

“I have to,” she said. “Howard is too busy planning this new and improved SHIELD headquarters.”

“Figures. Stark’s a good idea man but his follow-through sucks.”

“By the way,” she said, her voice relax-slurred, “He wants to change the location. Again. He’s back to looking in New Jersey.”

She expected Daniel’s response to be a derogatory word, possibly an expletive, followed by ‘Stark’, but instead she heard a heavy sigh and then, “Oh bother.”

She managed a weak laugh and soon drifted off to sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Wallpaper inspiration: <http://www.linesofpinner.co.uk/fabrics/jane-churchill-fabrics/nursery-tales-fabrics/j648f-04-winnie-the-pooh-and-friends>


End file.
